More retiring love

I have decided that I really need to give my retiring sets some love before they are gone for good. Today's featured set is Be Happy. I love this set, but somehow I never used it much.
For the workshop wow demo challenge, we were supposed to make a wow card to feature for the eScape promotion. Don't forget that we are supposed to eScape on June 25, one week from today! I don't have Circle of Friendship from the promotion, but we could substitute another circle stamp.
Hopefully, you can tell how fabulously glittery the flower is! Stampin' Up posted a video for demonstrators showing how great the Heat & Stick powder works with chipboard and glitter. Somehow, I didn't think of this before, so it's a good thing they told me! LOL I coated the chipboard with VersaMark and then poured on the H&S. I heated it just until the powder turned shiny and then poured on the glitter (purple of course!). Finally, I briefly heated it again to set the glitter down into the adhesive. Definitely a wow!
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Be Happy; Paper: Basic Gray textured, Soft Sky, Soft Sky Prints; Ink: Wild Wasabi, Basic Gray; Accessories: On Board Basics, heat & stick powder, fine cosmo glitter, 1 3/8" circle punch, Wild Wasabi ds grosgrain ribbon
Happy stamping!

New product line from Stampin' Up!

Stampin' Up has introduced a new product line: Decor Elements! They are vinyl artwork for your walls and home decor, and they coordinate with our stamp sets. (I think they included a sneak peek of some upcoming sets from the new catalog, too, because some of these are new designs!) They come in chocolate and white and some of them come in different sizes. They are completely removable as well. They will not be listed in the new catalog. Contact me if you would like a brochure; this brochure is the only way to see them, and they will be available for order on July 1st. SU also said that they plan to have more of these soon as well as introducing more products outside of the catalog in the future!

Beautiful Blossoms

I am in love with this card! It turned out great (IMHO). I saw this paper lantern technique on JanTInk's blog a while back, and I knew that Blossoms Abound would be perfect for it. Since it's retiring, I decided to show it a little love along with Weathered, another retiring background (BOO HOO HOO!! I love this one.) The sketch is from Taylored Expressions, and I think it fit this perfectly.

The paper lantern technique is pretty easy. You just stamp your image and put it through your crimper. Then you use Chocolate Chip Ink to hit the high spots unevenly. I think it looks really cool! Be careful when you attach your crimped piece to the mat; I flattened mine a little. My color combo is Almost Amethyst and Lovely Lilac for the lilacs and Old Olive and Always Artichoke for the leaves. I stamped Weathered and the sentiment from Fresh Cuts in Always Artichoke onto Old Olive cardstock.

Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Blossoms Abound, Weathered, Fresh Cuts; Paper: Confetti White, Lovely Lilac, Old Olive, Kraft, Almost Amethyst Prints DSP; Ink: Almost Amethyst, Lovely Lilac, Old Olive, Always Artichoke; Accessories: crimper, Aged Copper hodgepodge hardware, horizontal slot punch, Always Artichoke narrow grosgrain ribbon

Happy stamping!

Stampin' Up! Retiring List

Here is the retiring list for the Spring/Summer Collection. What do you think? I am losing 14 sets, 3 of which I got free from SU to begin with. Not too bad, I guess. But Weathered and Flannel Plaid???? I'm crying over those! I hope that means they will have some awesome new backgrounds that will work for men's cards. Thank goodness I still have Sanded! I'm also bummed about It's Your Birthday. Overall, I think they made good choices though.

Watercolor Banded Brayer

Last night, I was playing around with my brayer. Each month, Stampin' Up has contests we can enter to win free stamp sets. I don't enter very often because I'm not good at coming up with projects that fit their categories. One of the July categories is to use a brayer, so I decided to give it a try.
I decided to combine two techniques: Watercolor Wash and Banded Brayer. Watercolor Wash is the featured technique on SCS this week. You basically wash color onto wet watercolor paper and use it as a background. Banded Brayer is a technique that Britta Ward demonstrated a couple of years ago. You use Stampin' Spots to ink up your brayer, similar to a Spectrum pad. What I did was wet a piece of watercolor paper, let it sit a minute and then brayer the color onto it. Then I wet the paper again and brayered some more without reinking to blend the color more. Then I let it dry overnight.
I stamped images from Doodle This with Black StazOn and added white gel pen accents. I put a turquoise button in the center of the small flower and a lavender rhinestone brad in the center of the big flower. I punched photo corners from Shimmery White cardstock and mounted them onto a Gable Green card base; then I mounted the watercolor paper using Stampin' Dimensionals.
Supplies: Stamps: Doodle This; Paper: watercolor paper, Shimmery White, Gable Green; Ink: black StazOn, Pink Passion, Lovely Lilac, Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore; Accessories: photo corner punch, white gel pen, Fresh Favorites buttons, Ice Circle rhinestone brads
P.S. This is not the card I'm sending in to SU. I used the same technique for a totally different look that I'm hoping is a winner!

Here are the winners!

The blog candy drawing is done. Thanks to all who left comments! Due to duplicate posts, there were 49 entries.
Here are your random numbers:32 21 8 33 17
Timestamp: 2008-06-14 01:36:28 UTC
So the winners are:
# 8: Mary Jo said...
Wow, 20,000 hits. Congrats!!! Love your blog, you inspire me with your creativity. I really hope to see some birds and owls in the catalog. Keep going and many more hits to come.
# 17: misse336 said...
I'm hoping for some type of bling (rhinestones, pearls, etc) and/or the ability to buy their stamps unmounted (for less money) since I'm running out of storage space.
# 21: Annelies said...
I would love some great backgroundstamps I could use on my christmascards!Greetings from Belgium, Annelies
# 32: Lori said...
Congrats on all your hits! I would like to see more punches, wheels, and christmas sets. Thanks for the chance to win...And I love your blog!
# 33: Cindy said...
ITs all new and exciting to me. Only paper crafting since March and I love every new stamp, tool, product I come across!
Congratulations to all of you! Please e-mail me your snail address so I can send your winnings.

20,000 hits + one year of blogging = BLOG CANDY!

My hit counter tells me I've just gone over 20,000 hits. Wow! And June 28 will be my blogaversary as Lorien calls it. I think those 2 things call for some blog candy! Since it's two big events at once, I'm giving away not one, two, three or even four but FIVE things.
**Just one more day to enter for the blog candy. Please post your comment by 7PM Central time Friday.**

Two people will each win half of the level one Prints hostess set. These colors are only available in the hostess set. They are Bashful Blue, Wild Wasabi, Apricot Appeal, Real Red and Pretty in Pink.
One person will win 50 pieces of chipboard.
One person will win the retired level one hostess set Small Script, and one person will win the retired daisy punch.

How do you win? Leave me a comment of course! Tell me what you are hoping to see in the SU Fall/Winter Idea Book & Catalog coming your way on August 11. Please number your comment (current # of comments plus one) and one comment per person. The drawing will close on Friday, June 13 at 7PM Central Time.

I will try to leave this post at the top until then, so please scroll down for more recent posts.

Happy stamping!